Not sure if anyone has seen the preview for Flight, the new film starring Denzel Washington as a mainline pilot under the influence and under duress during a crash. The aircraft is shown flying upside down. I say it is impossible for a passenger aircraft to do so. Anyone agrees? Disagrees? (www.paramount.com) More...

Yup real thing went to A&E school in Seattle back in the early 60s with the copilot on that flights son. His father came down one day and talked about the events leading up to the 707 doing a roll over the Seafair race corse. Chuck Lyford did the same thing around 70-72 in a Lear that he owned or flew for someone. He got his ticket pulled upon landing at Pane Field and ended up for a few years in S America flying for hire in Fighters. He and another fellow used to fly P51s at airshows in the early 60x also.Just FYI.

I notice one of the comments in the story itself mentioned that Airbus would lock a pilot out of such a manuever as it was outside the envelope. A law change would put you in control if you had time to make it, but with most upsets, you don't have that time. That said, upsets happen all the time but AF447 seem to be the last major crash so either they are not so bad, or the recovery is not outside the envelope. I guess the technology is much improved but the 707, while a sweet bird, would bite you in the butt in a hurry and could almost sense when you were relaxed an/or not paying close attention to her.

I was going to bring up the same thing but you beat me to it. Story goes around in several different versions as well, about a 707 getting upendded somewhere, Captain had given up on recovery. Young FO asked for a crack at it and he had to roll it out to recover. Don't really know if that's fact or fiction as I have heard several versions of it

Haven't started yet. We won't get it until about 12/1. Me and another guy will probably do a couple of what I'll call shakedown flights in December but I don't really anticipate anything major until after the Holidays. It's taken this long for everybody to see just who is on first after the election. I know a lot of the 1st quarter trips were based on some folks looking to expand but word I hear is that everybody is real quiet now, waiting to see what congress does and what they have to look forward too. That's the bulk of what these folks do is long range planning and consulting, and they have a whole lot to look at and learn themselves, so it will all be interesting now.

Another fellow I spoke with was a flight line mech when it happened he said that Tex would come back from a test flight before it happened with pannels wrinkled and some covers missing with storys about doing stalls and having a little trouble. Turned out that was not the cause.

This one was at about 140 degrees at one point . FedEx Flight 705, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30 ferrying electronics to San Jose,(KSJC) experienced an attempted hijacking for the purpose of a suicide attack on April 7, 1994. On that day Auburn Calloway, a FedEx employee and US Navy veteran facing possible dismissal for lying about his previous flying experience, boarded the scheduled flight with several concealed hammers and a speargun. Once airborne he intended to kill the crew using blunt force so that the injuries inflicted would appear as though created in the crash. He then planned to intentionally crash the aircraft into Federal Express' Memphis headquarters. He believed that concealing his death as an accident while still an employee would make his family eligible for a $2.5 million life insurance policy paid by Federal Express.

The hijacking was unsuccessful, as the crew was able to fight back, despite severe wounds, subdue the attacker, and safely land the aircraft. The crew has never been able to return to commercial flight status

And there are other issues. The fuel system on most planes is generally not designed to handle inverted flight, so you could get a momentary interruption in fuel flow, especially if you're plane is pure gravity feed (Cessnas, etc).

Well, you notice he says "MOST PLANES" and he says you *SHOULDN'T" break anything. Mr. Murphy has a knack for showing up unannounced at times like that, and among other things, the seat will need redoing due to the pucker factor.lol

It is physically possible, but no sane pilot would do it except as a last ditch attempt. There was an incident where a Beech where the wing torqued upwards, so the pilot inverted to keep the wing in place. I haven't verified this, but I heard it from my school's aviation club.

Maybe some of you will remember a couple of Boeing Test Pilots by the names of, Lew Wallick, and Paul "Pablo" Bennett. They followed in the same footprints of Tex Johnson. I often wondered in amazement at what these excellent pilots got away with.They will surely be missed.

Just finished reading, The Flight by M.R. Hall, an English writer. The flight envelope of the A380 is the central issue of the novel and would make interesting reading for contributors to this squawk.ISBN 978-0-230-75202-3 2012 Macmillan